Before the Ceiling Broke

My mother holds me in front of our row house. Girls in the 1940's grew up in a society with gender bias.

I was born twenty-four years after the 19th Amendment to the
U.S. Constitution was ratified, granting women the right to vote. To witness a
woman nominated today for the top position in our country, in our world, is
amazing. It has taken a long time to get to this place. My world as a female
has gradually changed over the years.

Some of my personal memories reveal this:

* As a little girl, I grew up playing the
Old Maid card game. It wasn’t merely a game but was a reflection on attitudes
at that time. For their birthday and other holidays, little girls were given
gifts for their hope chest, real silver place settings — spoons,
knives, forks — with patterns these little girls had chosen for their future
marriage. Hope chest was an appropriate name because if they didn’t
marry, they would be old maids, and every little girl hoped that would
not be her fate.

* When I was ten, I announced that I wanted
to be a doctor — a brain surgeon. As a result, my parents had a serious talk
with me about how girls didn’t grow up to become doctors. They suggested that I
might want to be a nurse or a teacher. They probably wanted their daughter to
choose something that would be attainable.

* Often when girls asked serious questions,
they heard this answer, “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.” This
was usually followed with a paternalistic pat on the head.

* When I turned 12, my mother said I was old
enough to wear thin, three-inch heels and I was ecstatic. I didn’t understand
that for this power of standing taller and exuding an attitude, women give up
comfort, damage their knees, hurt leg and foot muscles, risk sciatica, strain
the neck and cause bone damage.

* When and if they did marry, in the wedding
ceremony fathers gave daughters away to their soon-to-be husbands. Although
most fathers did not think of their daughters as chattel, that attitude
persisted in tradition. I remember going to a wedding and hearing the bride
repeat that she would “honor and obey” her husband. I waited for the same words
from the groom but they never came.

* Women then, and many today, gave up their
last names to take their husband’s. They also gave up their first names in
formal address. When I was a teenager, many girls wrote their boyfriends’ names
on their school notebook covers, Mr. & Mrs. John Jenkins — over and over.

* When I went to college, there were special
rules for girls but not boys, curfews for girls but not boys. We had a dorm
mother who was responsible for making sure we followed the rules checked off by
our parents: can walk into town, can visit friends off campus, etc. Girls also
had a dress code for eating in the dining hall — only skirts or dresses, no
pants. This was a college in a cold mountain area.

* After I started teaching, I played with
the idea of going into the photography profession. In one interview, the
business owner told me that there were some jobs he wouldn’t send a woman to
photograph. I seem to remember it was about going up in a cherry picker to take
photos from high up. He didn’t know he was talking to a woman who would jump out
of a plane a few years later.

* When I left teaching to open a camera shop
with a partner, I remember a female customer standing in front of me, ignoring
me and looking all around. When I asked if I could help her, she responded, “I
was hoping the man would be here to help me with my camera problem.” I tried to
communicate what she had just done as I returned her camera that I had fixed.

Different Attitudes Then

* When I was five years old, polls were
asking: “Do you think married women whose husbands make enough to support
them should or should not be allowed to hold jobs if they want to?” The
results: Should be allowed 24%, Should notbe allowed 60%,
Depends 13%.” (Roper)

* When I was six, another poll asked: “Do
you think a married woman who has no children under sixteen and whose husband
makes enough to support her should or should not beallowed to
take a job if she wants to? Answers: Should be allowed 39%, Should not
be allowed 43%, Depends 16%” (Roper)

At that time, it was okay for women to head
a school’s PTA or a local Red Cross chapter, but it was not okay for her to
enter politics. A woman’s place was in the home and not in the workplace in the
40’s. In this country, during my lifetime, women have been seen as weak
creatures who need to be taken care of. Political office was too brutal. “Don’t
worry your pretty little head about it.” Because of a cultural division of
labor, one’s gender predetermined one’s path in life.

Although it continues today, unequal pay for
women who did jobs equal to men was especially prevalent. And, although it
continues today, the rape culture was more of a problem then. Today, it is
illegal for a husband to rape his wife but it was accepted years ago. Today we
understand that rape has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with
power.

Today

When Obama was elected, I naively breathed a
sigh of relief and truly believed that was the end of racial bias. It was a
huge moment. My husband and I wanted to go a local bar to be in the middle of
this exciting time in history. However, all we found was business as usual.
Instead of watching the celebration on the bar TV, we found the usual chitchat
and patrons playing video games. Silly me to expect anything different. Until I
was nine years old, schools were segregated. Although some things have changed,
we still have a long way to go.

Today I’m not so naïve. Yes, we have a
presidential candidate who was born 27 years after woman were guaranteed the
right to vote. She grew up in the same world I did and she’s running for the
highest office. If a woman is elected president this year, I understand that it
won’t be the end of female bias. But it would be a huge leap forward.

When there are no ceilings,
the sky’s the limit. ~ Hillary Clinton, July 28, 2016 at the Democratic
National Convention.

“Gender is also thought to impact the
decision-making process. Scholars contend that male and female officials have
uniquely different behavioral patterns when approaching group decision-making
(Kathlene 1994; Kennedy 2003; Hannagan and Larimer 2010). Research finds that
female leadership styles are more democratic, cooperative and more likely to
produce outcomes close to the median group preference. Male leadership styles,
by contrast, favor a more autocratic approach, seeking competitive individual
gains from group decision-making (Eagly and Johnson 1990; Rosenthal 2000;
Hannagan and Larimer 2010”

Some gender expectations dictate public
perception of women in politics.

“Hillary Clinton, poised to become the
world’s most powerful woman, stands out for not subjecting herself to such
painful footwear. She mostly wears flats or close-to flats while campaigning.
(And I should add that Arianna Huffington, my boss, is a self-proclaimed ‘flat
shoe advocate.)”